Tools

The VortexOpenSplice Tools ecosystem already featured Development Tools such as the Vortex OpenSplice Modeler and Deployment Tools such as the powerful Vortex OpenSplice Tuner (that allows a user to inspect and tune a deployed Data Distribution Service (DDS) application) and a Wireshark wire-protocol analyzer plugin.

Vortex OpenSplice v6 premiered the Vortex OpenSplice Tester tool. This new tool greatly simplifies the testing of DDS-based systems, allowing users to develop tests using familiar scripting languages, such as Python and JavaScript or a testing DSL. Along with testing capabilities, the Vortex OpenSplice Tester tool provides a powerful system browser including QoS conflict detection as well as offering data visualization capabilities. Vortex OpenSplice v6 also features Vortex OpenSplice Record and Replay (RnR) Manager which provides record and / or replay capabilities for DDS data.

For further details about the Vortex OpenSplice Tools ecosystem please select from the list below:

Vortex OpenSplice Tester

The Vortex OpenSplice Tester Tool is a major leap forward in automated testing and debugging of Data Distribution Service (DDS) based systems. The 100% Java based Vortex OpenSplice Tester Tool is designed with the systems integrator in mind and offers an intuitive set of features to aid this task, offering both 'local' operation (where the tool is running on a deployed DDS-system) as well as 'remote' operation (where the tool connects over SOAP to a remotely deployed DDS-system).

Key Features

Automated testing of DDS-based systems

Dynamic discovery of DDS entities

Domain-Specific scripting Language (DSL) for test scenario's

Batch execution of regression tests

Debugging of distributed DDS system

One-click definition of a monitoring-time-line

Analysis/comparison of topics / instances and samples

Virtual topic-attributes to dramatically ease analysis

System-browser of DDS entities (app's / readers / writers)

Connectivity and QoS-conflict monitoring / detection

Statistics-monitoring of applications and services

Integrated IDE

Syntax highlighting editor, script-executor and Sample Logger

One-click relations between script, logs and timeline

Optional integration of message-interfaces with DDS interactions

The Vortex OpenSplice Tester Tool has the following characteristics:

100% Java based

Remote-connection to target system (option)

Integrated charting capability

DDS-specific DSL alongside javascript, python or ruby

The Vortex OpenSplice Tester Tool is complementary to the Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool, in that the Tuner facilitates 'white-box' application monitoring and tuning (you can look 'inside' an application and monitor its behaviour and / or even change its Qualities of Service (QoS) parameters 'on-the-fly'). Whereas the Vortex OpenSplice Tester Tool provides 'black-box' system testing and debugging of DDS-based systems (it 'stimulates' a DDS-system by injection of information and can react-on / validate / display / chart the system's responses).

Vortex OpenSplice Tuner

Vortex OpenSplice Tuner is a powerful deployment tool within PrismTech’s Vortex OpenSplice product suite. This tool offers total control over a deployed Vortex OpenSplice based Data Distribution Service (DDS) system from any local or remote platform that supports the Java language.

The 100% Java based Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool greatly aids the design, implementation, test and maintenance of Vortex OpenSplice based distributed systems (the Vortex OpenSplice Tuner is available both as a 'standalone' Java-program as well as an Eclipse plug-in for the Productivity tool suite).

The Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool can be used during all phases of software development:

Design: During the design phase, once the information model is established (i.e. topics are defined and 'registered' in a runtime environment, which can be both a host-environment as well as a target-environment), the Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool allows creation of publishers / writers and subscribers / readers on the fly to experiment and validate how this data should be treated by the middleware regarding persistence, durability, latency, etc.

Implementation: During the implementation phase, where actual application-level processing and distribution of this information is developed, the Vortex OpenSplice Tuner allows injection of test input-data by creating publishers and writers 'on the fly' as well as validating the responses by creating subscribers and readers for any produced topics.

Test: During the test phase, the total system can be monitored by inspection of data (by making 'snapshots' of writer and reader history caches) and behavior of readers and writers (statistics, like how long data has resided in the reader's cache before it was read) as well as monitoring of the data distribution behavior (memory-usage, transport-latencies).

Maintenance: Maximum flexibility for planned and 'ad-hoc' maintenance is offered by allowing the 100% Java based Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool (which can be executed on any JAVA enabled platform without the need of Vortex OpenSplice to be installed) to remotely connect via the web-based SOAP protocol to any 'reachable' Vortex OpenSplice system around the world (as long a HTTP-connection can be established with the Vortex OpenSplice computing-nodes of that system). Using such a dynamic-connection, critical data may be logged and data-sets may be 'injected' into the system to be maintained (such as new settings which can be automatically 'persisted' using the Quality of Service (QoS) features as offered by the persistence-profile supported by Vortex OpenSplice).

The Vortex OpenSplice Tuner Tool is differentiated from other vendor's DDS based tooling by its dynamic capabilities to not only connect to any remote Vortex OpenSplice DDS based system at runtime, but also its capabilities to create, discover and (QoS) tune any DDS entities 'on-the-fly'. Vortex OpenSplice Tuner provides facilities to observe entities in a Vortex OpenSplice system and browse over their (mutual) relationships using different views

Vortex OpenSplice Configurator

The Vortex OpenSplice Configurator includes a rich online guide describing Vortex OpenSplice Configuration options as well as providing context-sensitive help and parameter validation.

The Vortex OpenSplice Configurator is distributed with the Vortex OpenSplice core distribution. It will distinguish between Data Distribution Service (DDS) community and commercial versions and will indicate those features that are not included in the product's community edition.

Vortex OpenSplice Modeler

The Vortex OpenSplice Modeler is an integrated Eclipse based modeling tool based on Data Distribution Service (DDS) domain specific model driven development (MDD) techniques. The Vortex OpenSplice Modeler facilitates DDS-based system development by clearly distinguishing between the various 'scopes' and 'lifecycle stages' of the system supported by visual composition, configuration and round-trip engineering.

The Vortex OpenSplice Modeler is available for all platforms supporting Java.

Vortex OpenSplice MmStat

The Vortex OpenSplice MmStat “shared-Memory Management Statics” tool is a command line tool that can be utilized in very simple ways such as monitoring the used and available amount of shared memory (assuming the federated-architecture deployment option is used):

Alternatively it has elaborate ways to monitor memory utilization of all Data Distribution Service (DDS) entities that are maintained in the shared memory segment and offers powerful ways to track down issues such as faulty applications continuously allocating new topics, instances, samples, etc.

Vortex OpenSplice Wireshark

Vortex OpenSplice is distributed with a wireshark 'dissector' for its RTNetworking network protocol. Together with the publicly available DDSI dissector this allows users to watch and trace any Data Distribution Service (DDS) related packet that goes on the wire from your Vortex OpenSplice DDS-based system.

Vortex OpenSplice Wireshark thus allows users to inspect DDSI-RTPS and RTNetworking packets that are exchanged between nodes on your network.

Vortex OpenSplice RnR Manager

Vortex OpenSplice RnR (Record and Replay) is included with Vortex OpenSplice and provides record and / or replay capabilities of Data Distribution Service (DDS) data. Vortex OpenSplice RnR has two distinctive components: (1) one or more pluggable Vortex OpenSplice RnR Services that perform the actual record and / or replay of data, and (2) a dedicated Vortex OpenSplice RnR Manager Tool (shown below) providing control over the RnR services. This allows recorded datasets import, analyzing, changing, and / or merging these and optionally exporting them to a target-system for replay purposes.

Related webcast

This webcast will highlight the project lifecycle improvements that can be achieved using Vortex tools by providing metrics from real-world use cases and demonstrating the individual tools that make this possible.

White Papers

Related presentation

This presentation will highlight the project lifecycle improvements that can be achieved using Vortex OpenSplice DDS tools by providing metrics from real-world use cases and demonstrating the individual tools that make this possible.